Am on the fence as to whether to purchase an AppleTV. Will Apple continue to consider this device a "hobby" or with GoogleTV's announcement today mean that there will be a shift in Apple's view of this device and provide a hardware/software update soon...
Comments
My problem is that I am really looking for a combination of two devices, a Mac Mini and an Apple TV.
I currently hook up my late '08 Unibody Macbook directly to the TV using the mini-display to HDMI adapter. I installed Perian and am now able to get surround sound from my archived DVD library as well. Scrolling through my list of movies on my phone and playing whatever I want quickly is awesome. Even my wife loves it, in fact between our movie library, Netflix, purchased shows off of iTunes, and applications like Hulu and ESPN3, we no longer have cable.
I already have the Magic Mouse and Bluetooth keyboard, but I haven't went all in just yet and purchased a Mini, because I am secretely holding out hope that Apple will integrate some of the nicer features of the Apple TV into something a little more full featured like the Mac Mini. I know I am living in a dream world, but a Blu-Ray slot would be terrific as well! I am not a huge fan of streaming things, I prefer local storage, so the Mini wins again with the (Apple supported) ability to use external hard drives to store media.
I think there is a strong demand for a combination Mac Mini/Apple TV device, and I really hope that Apple sees this and capitalizes on it. If nothing is announced soon, I will probably go ahead and purchase a base Mac Mini to relieve my laptop from media center duties.